These are my PERSONAL views and in no way represent the views of The Washington Post Co.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Google SearchWikiFinally, folks at Google have decided to directly involve users to improve search results. I have long maintained that direct user input is essential for better search results. Page-rank provides an indirect user input for search and, as proven by Google, is very effective in ranking search results. However, I am not very happy with the approach they have taken of identifying the users who have changed the search results. They do warn that others will be able to see that I made the change. Here is a link to a computerworld article about the negative press this feature has attracted. Obviously, privacy is a huge concern.

I am usually logged-into Google and was quickly able to change the order of search results. However, when I was not logged-in, the order was what Google had originally presented. I wonder if the input I provided will later propagate to the full system.

I am convinced that Google will find that the user input provides very valuable enhancement to the search experience. They do have to make sure that privacy is not compromised.

Monday, November 24, 2008

Microsoft Getting Serious about Cloud ComputingInteresting article in Business Week. I am intrigued by the scale of their offering and the approach of building a modular facility - a module being a container full of 2500 servers.